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Tagged wolverine MIA as feds and Colorado delay possible protection

M56, the juvenile wolverine tagged near Jackson, Wyo., in April 2009 and believed to have walked to Colorado soon after, has not been heard from in more than a year. (Cameron Miller Photography)

The wolverine M56 who trekked to Colorado seeking safe haven and, perhaps, a mate has gone missing as federal and state authorities delay decisions on whether to protect wolverines from intentional killing.

No radio signal has been detected since October 2012.

Federal officials this month announced they will delay a decision on endangered-species protection for wolverines until scientific disagreements on climate- change impacts are resolved.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials told The Denver Post that because of industry anxieties that protected status could cramp skiing and snowmobiling, they won't restart stakeholder talks about wolverines until after the federal decision is made.

M56's survival since 2009 — near Rocky Mountain National Park with forays as far as mountains southeast of Leadville and forests west of Fort Collins — had buoyed biologists' hopes that Colorado's high mountains offer an ideal refuge from effects of climate change. Wolverines need heavy late-season snow to form dens and cache food, and scientists calculate that 63 percent of habitat suitable for wolverines will vanish by 2085.

Colorado wildlife officials recently flew over M56's known haunts trying to pick up a signal from a cigar-sized radio transmitter implanted in M56's belly before the animal walked to Colorado from Wyoming.

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"M56 could have gone back north. M56 could have gone someplace else. Or M56 could still be roaming Colorado," parks and wildlife spokesman Randy Hampton said. "But we have not seen anything."

Federal biologists estimate there are 250 to 650 wolverines in the Lower 48 states. Trapping and poisoning in the early 1900s nearly drove the species extinct.

A female requires about 100 square miles of range. A male's home range usually is larger, covering one to three females' home ranges.

"Their way of life is to live in places where other carnivores cannot make it — deep snow — and live off carrion and small animals they can catch, like squirrels," said Shawn Sartorius, lead wolverine biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Fish and Wildlife will delay a decision on proposed federal protection for wolverines until August 2014. Only intentional killing would be prohibited, and federal authorities would allow human activities in wolverine habitat that do not threaten the species.

Federal authorities also had proposed to introduce an experimental population in the southern Rocky Mountains, including Colorado. But this could not begin until a decision is made on whether to grant "threatened" status.

Colorado officials will wait for a federal decision because industry groups are anxious about restrictions they fear if wolverines were deemed threatened. Industry groups want assurances their activities can continue, Hampton said.

In an e-mailed statement, Colorado Ski Country USA, which represents 21 mountain resorts, said the group looks forward to a decision on the proposed wolverine listing and experimental population. Resorts will "continue our commitment to being a constructive part of the conversation on wolverines in Colorado," spokeswoman Melanie Mills wrote.

The soonest Colorado could move ahead with a project to reintroduce wolverines would be January 2015, assuming stakeholder support and approval by state wildlife commissioners and the legislature, Hampton said. Importing even one wolverine to join M56 would have been illegal without legislative action, he said.

"Our goal would be to look at getting a population if we can get stakeholder agreement," Hampton said. "We don't want it to be a fight when it goes to the legislature. We'd rather do things slowly rather than move too quickly and jeopardize the political side of this. We're taking our time."